Murder City_ Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields - Charles Bowden [57]
A drink in hand is necessary for thinking about this military achievement. First, no one knows who is doing the killing, but two thousand soldiers and six hundred federal police have managed to bring Juárez to its highest annual murder rate in history. Second, there are no arrests, and it seems strange that such a massive force with roadblocks all over the city cannot, even by accident, bag one single killer. Third, there is the matter of the army torturing cops, raping female cops, and answering to no one. And finally, there is the thing whispered in the city, the thing no media on either side of the line will publish: that the army is doing the killing and, hence, sees little need for arrests since the cases are not mysteries to it.
Violence in Juárez always has an ability to become invisible. Since no one trusts the police, crime statistics are often guesswork because citizens of the city do not report what has happened to them. Since the police are often criminals, there is little incentive for them to fight crime. Since torture is the basic forensic tool of law enforcement, the elements of law and order have developed few, if any, skills in solving crimes. Since virtually everyone arrested confesses after enough beatings, there is a patina of crime fighting to disguise the actual business of a gangster state. Since all of this is obvious, it is almost never said and very often not even consciously believed. In most instances, the criminal police and the citizens both share in a fantasy that the crimes are being investigated, the criminals being tamed, and the person standing before them in a uniform and carrying a badge is part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
In the past, violence has flowed through the city like a river of blood, and sometimes the river ran on the surface and at other times, in order to make a political point or calm public apprehensions, the river went underground—literally—with the dead tossed into holes in the desert or buried in town in the backyards of death houses. But given the poverty, the corruption of the police, and the needs of the drug industry to enforce deals, the killing was fairly constant. No one wished to believe this fact. When murders declined, especially drug executions, there was a feeling something had passed by and now that it was behind everyone, a new kind of Juárez had evolved. When the killings got bad and the bodies were left in the streets like ornaments decorating the city’s secret way of life, then everyone said that it hardly mattered because only those in the life died and they were only killing each other. Few wished to consider what the expression “in the life” meant and how much of the city was either given over to the drug industry or fed off it.
Now the killing is more public than ever and the numbers keep climbing, and no one can explain why, except by claiming the tools of the past—the cartels are responsible and they have suddenly gone crazy.
Everything is supposed to get better. This conclusion is never explained, it is simply asserted. The economy will always get better, and this will make every single human being better. The drug consumption will go away, and all the bodies will glow with new health. The energy systems that drive human communities will morph from one form to another form, but they will always deliver the amount of energy desired at the price that is bearable. Eventually, with some more work in the laboratories, we will live a hundred, maybe two hundred years, maybe forever. We must be patient, but this future is certain. Places without factories will get factories, places that have seen factories close will get something even better for employment. No one will be hungry, no one will be fat, no one will be ugly, and no one will be without love. Education will spread like a plague, and everyone will know more because information